Kicking and Screaming
by RyanTyler2294
Summary: Martin gets dragged out of the closet, all but kicking and screaming. This one is just friendship, but a bit of slash if you squint.


Martin stood shell shocked as he listened to the news playing on the office T.V. This couldn't be happening. Not after all the time and effort he took into hiding it. Actually he probably could have handled it a lot better if his father wasn't in the room as well.

Perks of being the Deputy Directors kid, he's always in your department to check on you no matter how much favoritism was frowned upon.

That wasn't important now. His blood was running cold at this point as adrenaline ran through his veins. He cursed his fight reaction when all he wanted to do right now was take flight.

He turned to look across the room the where his father was standing. The look of disgust on the elders face was all too obvious when their eyes did lock.

"Dad I..." he didn't know what he was going to say, but it didn't matter. His father shook his head and walked out of the room.

"Martin," Danny, one of his co-workers, looked at him in concern. He didn't pay any attention to him. Right now his only focus was to get out of this room. Everyone was staring at him and he wasn't sure how much more of this he could take. He decided on taking the opposite route of his dad so he wouldn't risk running into him in the halls and having to deal with him one on one.

"Someone should go after him and make sure he doesn't do anything drastic." Samantha said looking at her other teammates.

"He'll be fine," Vivian reassured them, "Right now he just needs some time to himself."

Jack sighed, Vivian was right, chasing after Martin would only lead to him upsetting further.

Danny started back to his desk shaking his head, "Did you see the way his father looked at him?"

"I don't blame him for wanting to leave." Samantha agreed.

"Do you think he'll come back?"

"Most likely not today; by now the whole building knows. I doubt he'll want to deal with that."

"I'm going to head over to his place after work and see if he's okay."

"I don't think that's a good idea. Remember the pill thing? Approaching him on stuff like this only leads to a complete shutdown. You're going to have to wait a few days before he even lets you anywhere close to him."

It was true. Martin had this uncanny habit of putting on his brave face whenever the situation actually called for some kind of moral support. At first they chalked it up to him not wanting help form people beneath his status. The whole office knew that he came from money, and with money came a nose that tended to be very far up in the air. After a while of working with him though, they learned that he didn't really care for social statues, leading them to one explanation, his father.

Victor Fitzgerald was a crude man who expected nothing but the best from his kids. They weren't allowed to have problems, or low grades. They had to live up to the standard that was set for them.

Martin had managed to do that, though he had mentioned, indirectly, that he didn't particularly care for it. Even after he finished school, his father still watched over him, making sure that he stayed on the right path. It was weird because he completely ignored his other children.

They knew that Martin was the youngest of five kids, but Victor never mentioned any of them, only Martin.

"Still," Samantha mused, "You don't think that he's going to do anything drastic do you?"

"What would make you think he would," Danny asked.

"Well think about it, remember the pills. Like I said earlier he shut down when we tried to talk to him, but you also remember how he finally decided that he needed help."

Danny nodded. He had just happened to go over to Martin's place to try to talk to him one more time. It had become apparent that the pills had almost become the center of his life and that he was on a down wards spiral. At first when he knocked on the door and couldn't get an answer he thought that Martin was ignoring him, so he pulled out the spare key that Martin kept hidden in the plant by his door, and let himself in.

The sight when he opened the door, while shocking, was not that surprising. Martin lay on the floor on the cusp of consciousness. The only real sigh that he was alive was his fluttering eye lids and a few ragged breaths that he would let out. Other than that he was utterly still.

It wasn't hard to figure out that the man had over dosed. All the symptoms were there. Danny sighed a he kneeled down to check his friends pulse. It was very faint, but there. He pulled out his cellphone knowing that he couldn't deal with this himself.

Martin had woken up enough to try to beg him not to call the hospital. In normal situations Danny would have caved once Martin had proceeded to give him puppy eyes, but he knew he couldn't do it this time.

As luck would have it, the reason Martin didn't want him to call the hospital was because he had this weird fear of being strapped down to a table. Which must mean that somewhere, whoever controlled the irony in the world was laughing. The elevator to Martin's apartment was out of order and he lived on the tenth floor. That meant stair, which meant more straps than what would normally be used, so he would be secure.

Again Danny sighed; at least Martin didn't scream and cry like other people do when faced with their fear. He would have awakened the neighbors. He just goes really quiet.

Danny ended up calling Samantha, telling her that Martin had over dosed and was in the hospital. For some reason or the other she couldn't make it and said she would make sure that he was okay later.

Danny waited in the waiting room and, eventually a doctor came out to inform him that his friend was going to be fine and that he was able to see him right now.

Though the last thing Danny wanted to do was to go see Martin, He was kind of pissed at him letting this go so far, he decided that it wouldn't hurt to stop in for five minutes. Besides he wasn't really in a place to criticize.

He stayed a little bit longer than he intended. Seriously he would of been out of their a lot quicker if Martin hadn't said something along the lines of, "detox is a bitch".

"Wait, what?" Danny had asked as if he hadn't heard him right.

"Detox is a bitch man. I don't know why something in my head told me that I would be just fine by myself even though I had a pretty high dependency..."

"You're detoxing?"

"Yeah, the doctor said I'm in the final stages of...why are you giving me that look."

"Damn it Martin! I thought you over dosed."

"What?" It was Martin's turn to be confused.

"This past week, you seemed pretty down, when I found you I thought that you..."

"I'm not suicidal," Martin reassured him.

"Give me a heart attack why don't you?" Danny sighed running a hand through his hair. "Samantha might come to see you later so be prepared. I didn't tell Jack or Vivian what was going on, so if you need me to cover for you, just let me know what you need me to do."

"Thanks."

That was only two months ago. Which may seem like a decent amount of times to most people, but for a recovering addict it wasn't a long enough time for Martin to be back on his feet. He really shouldn't have been at work to begin with, but he wanted to keep up appearances so his father wouldn't worry. Though, with a crisis like the one that Martin was going through now, it would be easy for him to slip back into his old habits.

"I'm going to go visit him?" Danny decided, "He can't be left alone right now."

"Call me if something goes wrong." Jack warned.

"I will."

The drive to Martin's house didn't take that long. He lived just over the Brooklyn Bridge. When Martin didn't answer the door, Danny felt the dread creep up the back of his neck. This caused him to fumble for the spar key only to find the apartment empty. Panic set in again. There were only but so many places he could be, right? He took a deep breath.

"Are you looking for Martin?" a voice came from behind him causing him to jump. He called down when he saw it was Martin's elderly neighbor.

"Yes, do you know where he is?"

"I do actually. He came home pretty early, is everything okay."

"Kind of," he said impatiently, "You said you know where he is."

"I saw the thing on the news. I can't believe that they invaded his privacy. I can't imagine what that poor boy is going through and now his whole family knows."

"Where is he now? I want to make sure that he's okay," Danny said slowly. He was trying not to yell at the poor lady but he was really worried about his friend.

"Oh yes, I think he said he was going up to the roof."

"The roof?" He tried to keep the anxiety out of his voice.

"I'm pretty sure that's what he said."

"I'm going to go check on him," he said closing the door to the apartment.

"Make sure he's alright," she bid as she shuffled back to her room.

The one thing that sucked about Martin's apartment was the fore mentioned broken elevator. That meant twenty more flights of stairs until he made it to the roof. Once there it wasn't hard to spot Martin leaning by the edge. Swallowing his panic for what felt like the tenth time he approached Martin slowly. He stood next to him for a while not speaking as he tried to gage the other man's mood before he spoke.

"You do know that no one in the office cares right?" Danny asked. It would be easier to beat around the bush for a little while before moving to the teal topic at hand.

"That's the least of my concerns," Martin said, not looking at him.

"Why didn't you tell us?"

"I figured you guys would put two and two together at some point in time. You are detectives after all."

"Are you going to be okay? You didn't look too good when you left."

"Of all the ways for him to find out," Martin sighed, burying his face in his hands.

"I could have been worse," Danny tried to shrug as if it wasn't a big deal.

"Worse," Martin snapped, his voice hitting a higher octave than anyone though it could, "How could it have possibly of been worse.

True enough, it did appear as if the universe had its cards stacked against him. The day had started out normal enough. Vivian had brought donuts like she always did on Tuesdays. Jack told them to make sure they got their paper work in from the latest case on time, Samantha had used the few hours their boss locked himself in his office to catch up on her sleep, Danny made some off comment about Martin's clothes not matching, and Martin playfully flipped him off while he headed to the break room to get his third cup of coffee in the past hour.

It wasn't odd to see Victor checking out what was going on in their office He made a point to take the flight from Seattle to New York at least once a month. It was obvious that event though Martin was an adult and had been a part of the Missing Persons Unit for a few years that his father still saw him as a child. The office ignored his presence at this point and went about their daily business.

That included turning on the T.V's to their respected news stations.

_"And now we bring you breaking news. We have footage of a certain Deputy Director's son with another man." _One of the many anchor ladies announced. This perked the interest of almost everyone on the floor, including the previously mentioned Director. Cuts of footage along with pictures flashed across the screen. They were all of Martin with some guy. You could tell from looking that the two were romantically involved. Soon the equivalent of the same story was playing on every other news station.

Martin had stopped doing what he was in the middle of, completely shocked.

"My dad was there, how could it of been any worse."

"They could have shown pictures of you in a...compromising position."

Martin snorted, "I wasn't even with that guy for that long to make it that far."

"So are you upset about your dad, or the memory of your ex," Danny joked trying to lighten the mood.

"My dad is going to disown me."

"I'm sure the rest of your family will accept you."

"It doesn't matter if they accept it or not. They'll side with dad to make sure that they get a good chunk on his will. That's the way the family works. If you're not on his side you won't reap the benefits of being a Fitzgerald"

"You never sounded like you were that close to him."

Martin shook his head, "I was the favorite."

"Oh."

"It's not easy to make it to that spot when you're the youngest. I think it was because I was the one who looks the most like him. He wanted me to be just like him, and then some. I pretty sure it's the soul reason my resume looked as good as it did. I was always doing some sort of program or sport he thought I would be good at. By the time that I knew I was... you get the point, I knew better than to tell my dad. Part of me feels like he always know but we've both been kind of dancing around the subject. He looked more disgusted than shocked."

"We'll, we have your back," Danny reassured him.

"I was going to tell him before," Martin said looking very distant, "When I was still in high school, I thought it would be a good time to do so, then he came in ranting about one of the guys on the job, Jeff, he was one of the few good guys in the office. He came out to the office he worked in, and no one took it well. He ended up transferring because the harassment got so bad. That was when I decided not to tell anyone."

"At least you don't have to hide it anymore. That has to kind of liberating. When I came out to my brother, even though he didn't approve of it, it felt good to have someone know."

"I guess... is Jack mad at how I left."

"No, he understands," when Martin didn't respond, "Let's head inside, it's kind of cold out here, don't you think."

The way Martin was looking down at the ground was starting to scare him. Sure, Martin had said he wasn't suicidal, but no one is going to admit that. There were many times when, outside of the detoxing incident, that Danny and Sam were pretty sure Martin was thinking of offing himself. It was why he couldn't leave him alone right now. He wouldn't be able to forgive himself if Martin did something when he left.

"Fine," Martin pushed away from the ledge.

"If it makes you feel any better. These kind of things blow over after a few days."

"I know," Martin sighed.

~.~.~.~.~

Martin had thanked Danny for staying with him through the night the next day at work.

"Don't worry about it?" Danny had reassured him. It didn't do much good. All the tell-tale signs of stress were written all over Martin. He wasn't focused his hands were shaking half the time.

That was when it happened.

"There's an Ethan Fitzgerald down stairs." Samantha told Jack, "He says that he's here to see Martin but I'm not sure if..."

"Let him up," Jack said, "Even Victor wasn't stupid enough to make a seen in the office. I doubt his kids will."

"Hey," the man leaned against Martins' desk causing the younger man to jump, "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you."

"What do you want?" Martin sighed as if ready for verbal abuse.

"I saw the news yesterday." Ethan shrugged, "Anyways, I wanted to let you know that while everyone else in the family may not have your back, I do."

Martin looked stunned for a second giving Ethan enough time to continue.

"Don't look so shocked. You're acting as if I haven't known."

"You knew?"

"It was kind of hard not to know." Ethan joked, "Anyways, I don't want to hold you up from work too long but, I wanted you to know that."

"Thanks," Martin smiled.

"No problem."

~.~.~.~.~

Danny was right about the tabloids. After a few days no one cared, except his dad.

Martin had driven in with Danny to work that day because his truck had broken down. He was surprised at how relaxed the office was about the whole situation. He knew that his previous office in Seattle would have had a conniption if they knew. Come to think of it, they probably were right now, knowing that he had worked with them.

That aside, he'd been having a pretty good week. He hung out with his brother once or twice and a few more times with the team. It was nice to finally find a place where he could fit in and wouldn't be judged.

On top of that, he felt like Danny was putting out signals. He spent more time with the other man in one week than he had when he first came to the team. He didn't want to mess anything up by acting on it first. He liked Danny for a long time but always assumed that he was straight.

Anyways, he was walking into the office with Danny, talking about much of nothing when one of the interns from the mail room hand him a rather large envelope.

"What is it?" Danny asked.

"Not sure," Martin sat down to open it. The only time when he ever got these kinds of envelopes when they weren't working a case was when he'd screwed something up in the paper work and it got sent back.

This didn't feel like it was that though. The document inside was way too thick.

His mouth dropped when he finally read the first few paragraphs.

"What's wrong," Danny asked concerned.

"He's legally disowning me?" Martin fell back into his chair, "I know he didn't like that I...but I didn't think he would go as far to disown me like this."

"Are you going to sign it?"

"I don't know," he shoved the documents into one of the draws on his desk. "Probably just to keep him from coming down here."

"If you want I could drop you back home. I'm sure Jack wouldn't mind if you..."

"I'd like that, thanks." Martin grabbed his stuff while Danny told Jack what was going on. Sure enough, just as the media had forgotten about him they had somehow found out about the paper work his father had sent him.

"How is any of this news," Martin asked.

"People get bored," Danny said simply, "Come on, I said I'd take you home."

"That's alright, I'll just take the subway," Martin said, "If they're starting this up again their just going to blow you drive me home out of proportion. I don't want you to have to suffer through this."

Danny stared at Martin trying to figure out what to do, "Fine, I'll visit you after work."

"You don't have to do that."

"I want to."

Martin blushed a bit before agreeing to it.

Danny kept to his word and came by a little after work got out.

"I brought take out!" he announced as he entered.

Martin forgot that he gave him a house key a while back.

"Thanks," Martin was sincere, "But I'm really not hungry."

"You're just stressed right now. At least eat a little bit to put my mind at ease."

"Yeah, sure," Martin graded one of the container and a fork.

"What have you been up to since you left," Danny asked.

"Filling out all that damn paper work… Screw Victor, I never wanted to be a part of that family to begin with."

Danny let him talk; know that what he was saying wasn't the truth. Right now wasn't the time to push for a revolution. Martin was two steps away from completely shutting down. He'd seen him get like this after particularly bad cases.

"He never even really wanted me to begin with. I don't know how many times he mentioned that I wasn't planed for."

"I thought you were the favorite."

"Say's a lot doesn't it?" Martin sighed slumping into the couch and picking at his food.

"Has your mom contacted you at all?"

"Nope, she never does and she never will. My family was never that close to being with. The fact that Ethan visited me is surprising in its self. It's what I hate the most about coming from a rich family. I rather had been living on the streets with a close family, than the way I did."

Danny wanted to snort, but he restrained himself from speaking. This is where he and Martin butted heads. Whenever it came down to talking about being middle class or lower, Martin always said he would have preferred it. Danny would get slightly agitated because Martin never had to live like that, never had to struggle to get by, and he had no idea what he was talking about, but this wasn't about him right now.

"My parents were never really around to begin with, and my siblings were only nice to me when we were at fundraisers, which wasn't that often. My dad was scared that taking us out in public may ruin his image. I can't tell you how hard I tried just to...get my parents to notice me outside of events."

By now Martin had all but slumped into the couch looking pretty depressed, "Nothing makes them happy. Now just because I'm gay, they want to disown me. It wasn't like they owned me to begin with," he snorted, "As if my dad has the right to talk about how wrong it is to be with someone of the same gender. Everyone knows why he was always taking those long boating trips..." Martin's voice trailed off.

"Wait," Danny was confused, "Victor what..."

"He has a gay lover," Martin shrugged, "Ever notice that guy who hangs around his office? He's always there when ever we go to Seattle."

"You mean the Director?"

"That's who that is," Martin chuckled, "I guess my dad did fuck his way to the top."

"How can you say that so casually?"

"I've known for too long to care. I don't know how he holds that relationship together when he's always preaching hatred for what he is."

"Maybe they're scared to come out?"

"He doesn't have to take it out on me!" Martin set his, practically untouched, container of food on the table in front of him.

"He might come around," Danny reassured him, "When I told my brother I was bi he didn't talk to me for years, but we recently got back in contact."

"This is Victor we're talking about," Martin reasoned, "I know to most people it doesn't make since but..."

"I've worked with him before. I know what he's like."

They fell into silence yet again.

Martin was facing away from Danny and being unusually quiet. It wasn't until Danny heard Martin's sharp intake of breath that he was concerned. The other man's shoulders were shaking from pent up emotion. Danny couldn't be sure if he was crying or not. Either way he moved to comfort the other man.

"Hey, come on, it's not that bad."

Martin shook his head, "Yes, it is." Martin said flatly. Oddly enough, his voice came out even. "You have no idea what kind of side show this is going to turn into."

That was true. Danny knew that there was some sort of political aspect of what ever went on with Martin's kind of family. Their statues was based off of their image and how "perfect" the family seemed to cohabitate. Though, somehow, Danny had a feeling that, that wasn't the reason Martin was so upset.

"My dad's going to lie to the media and say he doesn't care. Then the media is going to point out the obvious contradiction between him not caring and him disowning they'll steak out me place to try and get some sort of an interview."

"If you're trying to avoid the media, you could stay at my place."

"No, they'll just blow that way out of proportion."

"I wouldn't care. Everyone in the office wouldn't believe it either."

"Yes, but my dad isn't that bright. He'll think what they're saying is true and transfer me to a different office."

"I doubt Victor would go that far."

"How do you think I ended up in New York? That was just when he _thought_ that I was flirting with a co-worker, which I wasn't. Now that he knows I'm gay, the slightest amount of interaction with anyone will..."

"Martin," Danny interrupted, "Calm down. If Victor does something, then we'll deal with it. Until then, let's just play it by ear."

Martin slumped even more into the couch, "You're right. Worrying won't get me anywhere."

Danny gave him a reassuring smile before saying, "I should get going. We still have work in the morning," Danny stood up to leave. Once at the door he turned to say, "By the way, when I said I wouldn't mind if people thought we were together. I would still be your friend regardless of what everyone thinks."

"Thank you." Martin said in a low voice, and he meant it.

**Omg, I'm finally done with this. This has been in my document manager for over a year. Sorry about grammar and spelling.**

**Anyway, over the summer I'm going to be giving all of my old fics a face life. If you see a "_fl_" on the top it means that it's been edited.**

**Fics that will see a lot of changes are, "A Mess" "Blue Eyes" and maybe "The Truth"**

**Also I found all of my old Danny/Martin that I was working on, so you can expect to see those. No muti chapters though. **

**I still take requests! Especially for this ship. The fandom for this isn't that big so I'm willing to make your dreams comes true.**


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